[c-nsp] Cisco Nexus as MetroE switch?

[Mark Tinka]

On 17/Oct/15 06:26, Nathan Ward wrote:

> I’m surprised no one has yet mentioned Juniper ACX - or at least I couldn’t see it in a quick scan of the thread.

It was mentioned...

>
> These look like a good metro-e/MPLS box as an alternative for ME3600X, and at a good price. The 5K variant, which is where you’d be looking, have 48/96 1G/10G interfaces, and 6x40G. The 1/10G interfaces are 1G for free, and 10G per port with a license - note that the cost per port is the same on 1/8/16/etc. port bundles so you can grow as you need. The 40G are free.
>
> I believe it is the same hardware as the QFX, but different software.
>
> I’m about to order a handful so can report back on how well they work.

I advised against it due to the Broadcom chipset that has limited label
depth, and as such, won't support certain features such as NG-MVPN. As
that mattered to us, we dropped the box immediately, since Juniper could
not compromise despite me asking them, time and time again, to get more
serious about Metro-E.

So there could be other forwarding restrictions the Broadcom may
introduce into your network that you may not have thought about now. I'd
suggest you think about and test anything and everything you (think you
will) run before buying. The OS environment will feel like an M/MX, but
I'm betting you'll only be able to do 75% of the things you can do on a
router.

Mark.